Since 2012, FOUR PAWS has been advocating for change in the Ukraine where there is a long-standing history of brown bear abuse. We have been working hard to highlight the systematic abuse of brown bears and fighting to change government regulations on the ownership of wild animals.

The cruel practice of bear-baiting was legally banned in 2015 thanks to campaigning by FOUR PAWS and local animal rights activists, yet today, bears still linger on hunting stations where they are chained up, their claws often ripped out without anaesthetic, and fears that they may still be abused as bait to help train hunting dogs.

Across the Ukraine, brown bears are also kept by private persons as pets or as attractions for restaurants, hotels, and recreational parks. These bears are kept in inappropriate conditions, without proper food, enrichment, or veterinary care. Most of them spend their lives in small concrete enclosures, denied their basic instincts to roam, hunt, forage and play. The physical and psychological stress these bears endure is evident through their behaviour – pacing, head bobbing, biting on their cage bars, salivating, huffing and vocalisations.

Although the keeping of bears in restaurants, hotels and other facilities was banned in August 2021, a lot still needs to be done before all those bears can be rescued and provided with a species-appropriate life.